Vatican Ecstatic In Cuba Assessment

Pontiff's Visit Was `Authentic Wojtyla,' Archbishop Says

ROME — The visit of Pope John Paul II to Cuba shows that, despite age and infirmity, he still can wrench people out of discouraged indifference and alter the affairs of nations.

The pope returned to Rome from Cuba early Monday and began resting from his five-day trip. He issued no public statements regarding the visit.

However, senior Vatican officials traveling with the pope expressed delight over the outcome.

"This was authentic Wojtyla, authentic John Paul II," said a beaming Archbishop John Foley on Sunday evening, as the pope's plane prepared to depart the spellbound island. The pope's given name was Karol Wojtyla, but he took the name John Paul II upon his election as pope in 1978.

Foley, of the Vatican's Council for Social Communication, is charged with helping spread the church's message about society. As he heard the uncharacteristic chants of "freedom, freedom" from Cubans on Sunday morning during the final mass, and watched the scene being beamed throughout the island and around the globe, he knew the papal message had found its target.

The visit's lasting impact will be harder to gauge. It is impossible to measure precisely the results of the pope's visit, to know how or whether it will energize and leaven the Cuban church, alter moral thinking or spark a movement toward more open society.

The Vatican's initiative urging Cuba to free hundreds of political prisoners has so far earned nothing more than a promise from government officials that they will seriously consider it.

In Washington, the State Department showed interest in a congressional proposal to provide direct U.S. government assistance to Cuba for the first time in decades. The proposal calls for donations of food and medicine to be distributed to needy Cubans by the American Red Cross, according to a draft of the plan. At least some of the food would be authorized under the U.S. Food for Peace program.

"The initiative takes the opportunity of the visit to Cuba of Pope John Paul II to address the concerns of the Catholic Church and other religious and humanitarian organizations by providing aid directly to those who need it most," the draft says.

Whatever happens next, Vatican officials expect it will be impossible to wipe out the legacy of the visit, even if the Cuban government should try. Four Roman Catholic masses drew hundreds of thousands of Cubans together, where they heard a radically different vision for their nation than the one many have grown up on. Millions saw it on TV.

For his part, the pope silenced those who wondered whether age and health would finally diminish his larger-than-life presence. Pope John Paul II, 77 and suffering from a variety of chronic problems, walked with difficulty during this trip. His voice sometimes trembled.

His endurance never wavered, however, and he seemed to take new energy from the people he met, reveling in the rowdy cheers of young people in Camaguey and grinning outright as he left Sunday's mass in Havana. Shortly before climbing into his popemobile, he raised his arms, cane in one hand, and pumped his fists in the air.

The pope did not, as he sometimes has in the past, talk to reporters about his trip on the flight back to Rome. He may discuss the visit Wednesday at the Vatican in his weekly public audience, which he has traditionally used to reflect on his travels.

His spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, referred reporters to the pope's departure speech, in which the pontiff said the trip left him emotional, grateful and confident in the future of Cuba.

As the media focus on the effects of the trip on Cuba, church officials also are considering the collateral benefits gained around the world.

"In the church universal there was certainly a reminder of a need for solidarity," said Foley. "It may also help people examine their consciences regarding material things."

At the same time, the visit offered images of a Catholic church that is vast, eloquent and united--tonic to an institution whose flaws and cracks are regularly examined in public.

There was a sense of spontaneity in Sunday's sporadic chants for freedom, and indeed, the Cubans in the crowd may not have gone to the mass with that intention. But the pope arrived in Cuba well prepared to generate that response, with an itinerary rich in possibilities and 12 speeches, each preprinted in three official translations.

Those events and the pope's words were crafted months ahead of time and thousands of miles from the Caribbean. Once in Cuba, the speeches built carefully from one theme to the next, one day to the next, intertwining and repeating like a symphonic score.

By Sunday the pope presented his unified vision of a new, faith-based society in Cuba, with directions on how to get there.

For example, the pope did not arrive in Cuba last Wednesday calling for freedom outright. His first message to the Cubans echoed the first address he made as pope in 1978: "Do not be afraid."